How local school districts are handling Senate Bill 73

GLASGOW, Ky. – Senate Bill 73 has many parents talking, as it makes sextortion a felony and requires schools to increase awareness about it.

“What that law requires us to do is to have conversations with our students in grades four on up about sexual extortion… but age appropriate conversations, and what we speak to our fourth grade about will look much different than what we speak to our high school students about, and we will frame that in a much different way,” Lori Downs, Assistant Director of Pupil Personnel with Barren County Schools, says.

Barren County wants to stress that if you aren’t comfortable with your kids learning about the material in school, you have the ability to opt out of it.

“They only need to reach out to their school and let them know that they would prefer for their child not to be a part of that conversation… and then we know that they want to have those conversations at home, and so we completely understand that… and so we just want to partner with our parents to make sure we’re getting this message out, whether that’s at home, at school or both. We just want to make sure that it’s happening,” Downs says.

As it turns out, those conversations are actually working.

“Through that, our students will often say to us right away ‘Hey, I’ve got people. People ask me for inappropriate pictures online…’ and that really begins and opens up the door for the conversation with them. We’re not typically even using words such as sexual extortion, although we might use that with some of our older students… but it really doesn’t. We don’t even frame it that way… but we talk about those inappropriate interactions online, and we tell our students it is never appropriate for someone to ask them for an inappropriate picture of themselves, whether they know that person or no,” Downs says.

Edmonson County Schools are teaching the same things to their students as well.

“We do classroom counseling for our counselors… and some of the things that we talk about is if you feel uncomfortable, if you feel like that you’re being mistreated in any way, then you know the appropriate steps to take and to talk to the appropriate adults concerning that so they can get help from an adult,” superintendent Brian Alexander says.

Edmonson County’s main goal is to make sure students are safe when online, as Superintendent Alexander says they want to make sure they’re sensitive and delicate in delivering the material to younger kids as well.

Barren County also wants parents to look out for their kids and any changes they may be going through.

“That goes for teachers, staff, parents, caregivers. If you start to see a change in behavior, then it could possibly be connected to online interactions,” Chele Gillon, Counseling Services Coordinator for Barren County Schools, says.

If you DO feel your child is a victim, here’s what Downs recommends:

“Let somebody know, block them and no longer interact with them, and then let’s involve the appropriate people in that, because we need to make sure that we are doing our best job putting a stop to this,” she says.